Borderlands 2 confirms why developers should put more time in their PC ports.

My brother got me Borderlands 2 for the PC for my birthday a month ago. He bought it with me because I wanted to try it, but i played it the first few days after my birthday and haven't touched it since.

the interface is just atrocious and is designed for console. you can't compare items easily, controlling using a mouse is difficult at best and it's difficult to compare talents.

the gameplay pretty nice, but again, it just seems like they made concessions again for the console audience. you start with only 2 weapon slots and need to unlock the rest, you can not carry many weapons and there is very little in the way of character depth. yeah, you can upgrade your stats, you can choose talents, but there is only 1 skill per class and that skill is not very deep.

finally, my biggest gripe, the checkpoint system. Ugh, what a mess. I don't know why so many devs insist to keep using such an antiquated, confusing and constraining system. I realise that this is mostly because of multiplayer, but it's just not fun. I don't want to guess when i just had my game saved, I don't want to guess when the latest respawn was and i don't want to be forced to stop early or late because i've only got 10 minutes left and can't reach the next checkpoint in that time.

that's just my personal opinion on the game, but i just don't like that developers don't use the extra possibilities of the PC hardware and peripherals. oh wait, the borderlands devs did. only instead of adding ACTUALLY useful and important PC modifications like an upgraded interface or save anywhere, they decided to give extra graphics. but why do they do this? I mean, take Skyrim, even though their interface is possibly even worse on PC (though decent on console), you can save anywhere on both PC and consoles. and skyrim can be modded to replace the interface, which means that point is moot.

I just don't get it. if you are saying you're going to do a proper PC port, then why stop at graphics? PC is more than just shiny graphics, it also has a mouse and keyboard that control vastly different than a controller.

Currently only reading the Funny Pictures Megathread because the rest of the forums is filled with piss, whiners and pissed whiners.

Borderlands 2 is one of the finest pc ports we've recieved this in recent history.
Maybe your right about certain concessions but as far as gfx, performance, options, and menu's I could hardly ask for more.

Let's just get one thing straight, when it comes to a single player experience, Skyrim >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Boredlands. Seriously, I have 360 hours played in Skyrim and Boredlands 2 (dammit, I mean Borderlands 2, I keep making that typo for some reason) bored me within 2 hours.

Cool story, but it has nothing to do with the topic on hand and is only going to invite game vs. game debate. Infracted. -Edge

Both Borderlands games were focused on multiplayer, so why would you play it alone? And checkpoints are the only way to do a multiplayer co-op game with resurection. Imagine everyone having a save at a different point...

The only legit concern you have is about the menu. Honestly just think it's poorly designed, not that it's made for consoles. The way of the checkpoint is because of it being a multiplayer game, and you can always save and quit anywhere, without having to get to another checkpoint. The amount of options in this game make it above and beyond almost all PC games that were released on consoles as well.

BL2 is one the better ports around, if you compare to how badly console ports usually are made.

But, the interface is still of course very lacking.

To declare that a personal, inner experience gives certainty about the workings of the universe is to assign far too much value to one’s subjective sense of conviction.
I’m not that arrogant.
The brain, marvelous instrument though it is, isn’t infallible. It can misfire, seize or hallucinate, and it can do so in a way that’s utterly indistinguishable from reality to the person experiencing it.

Never gamed on a PC, and correct me if I'm wrong, but:
Can't you game with a controller on a PC?
Can't you save and quit the game from the main menu?

I don't necessarily agree with everything that the original poster said, but, play a first-person shooter with a controller?! When there is a perfectly good combination of keyboard and mouse? Why cripple yourself? It's like having a steering wheel and pedals system for driving games but playing them with the keyboard. Maybe you don't understand it, because as you say you've never gamed on a pc, but a controller is nowhere near as good as a keyboard and a mouse for first-person shooters and first-person games in general.

let me get 1 thing straight: I will NOT use a controller for any PC game, except for 3rd person platformers and vehicle simulators that don't play well with keyboard and mouse. being asked to give up keyboard and mouse for a controller is like giving up a round ball for a dodecahedron shaped one during football. it might work better in some aspects (menu, standstill phases), but for 90% of the game, the replacement option is actually such a big downgrade that it becomes harder or requires artificial help. for example, console shooters are nearly impossible to play without aim assist and sometimes even autoaim, and even with those helping, PC gamers still horribly mutilate console gamers in every respect.

let me put it this way: you wouldn't play a racing game with keyboard and mouse, so you wouldn't also play a shooter with a controller.

Currently only reading the Funny Pictures Megathread because the rest of the forums is filled with piss, whiners and pissed whiners.

I truthfully don't believe they did justice to Borderlands 2 from the videos/reviews I've seen. I think they could've done a bit more but from what my friends have related to me (big fan of the first one, they're also big fans as well), told me to just save my money and wait for the eventual GOTY/Sale.

What bothers me about Borderlands 2 is the lack of server side character storage and a quest tracking system that does not at all play nicely with the quests that actually exist in the game. There's so many points in the game where you're clearly intended to do more than one quest at a time, but you're only allowed to set one quest as the active quest (for the entire team) at a time. The public game scene basically died within the first week of the game because of golden key abuse and character editing in general; I don't think I've seen a single public game player that hasn't edited their character to have every skill maxed out.

Those issues aren't strictly unique to the PC version though (although cheating is certainly easier and more prevalent). On the other hand we have a lot of great performance, control and simple but often neglected options like FoV selection in the PC version. There's certainly some significant flaws in the game, but Gearbox did a legit effort at making a quality PC version and they deserve credit for that.

I agree about the weapon compare thing, it can be a little annoying.
Other than that i'm having a blast with Borderlands 2, i think it's of the best games i've played this year and i just picked it up because i never tried the first one.
if you tried the first one, i guess it's nothing new...

Controls are ok, i can live with them once you get used to it. Settings for Graphics and so on are great imo.

You can buy upgrades that makes your inventory bigger, and usually there's vending machines everywhere you go so i'm almost never having space issues.
Checkpoints are not a big issue for me, there's pleny of save stations and you can always just run back to 1 if you wanna stop playing.

usually i hate not having a save option everywhere, but i don't think it's a deal breaker here.

i you wanna bash bad pc ports, i would say there's plenty of worse examples out there

I've got 150 hours on BL2 and I can easily put my finger on some issues.

1) Scrolling with mouse often breaks the display when in inventory or shop, arrows have to be used. This is clearly an issue with the port (controller based UI) and I hope it gets fixed in a patch.

2) If you are playing a Siren (which I am) 27 gear slots are nowhere near enough at lvl 50. Considering you want to carry different flavours of many different weapons and a selection of class mods to match the type of damage you want to do, aswell as grenade and shield mods. I played it smart, by having my bag full before doing all the side quests, and am currently at 65/27. This does mean that I still have to drop something to pick up something else, and I can't buy anything from the shops.
The Bank is not big enough, and I can't take things out of it while I'm overdrawn on my bags... In BL1 you could get a much bigger main bag, and then up to 32 more bank slots in moxxie's underdome. (I'm actually tempted to do a save edit to increase my carrying capacity)

3) There's nothing to spend Eridium on when you unlock everything, and it keeps dropping for you. This is not a major problem, but it does hide other purple items when you are trying to find loot drops from a boss.

4) Public games can get a bit annoying re loot. It would have been quite simple to make the loot drops instanced (and allow trading) like in Torchlight 2. Instead, unless you are playing with known friends, it often happens that people just zone in on the purple/orange items and snap them up (in fear) first, then worry about whether they are useful or not. I have found a few good groups who don't touch the loot until everyone has had a good look at them (I got my Slayer mod that way, being the only Siren on the team). But if you are playing a Sniper, you can often be really far away from the body when he dies, and easily miss out on something if it's picked up before you see it.

And that's pretty much it. I absolutely love the game and eagerly await the next DLC (have season pass) and can't wait to get home from work to play some more. It's such fun in multiplayer and my Siren is a great class.